Hit the Bulls Eye with Visitor Segmentation by:Neil Paige

Do you really believe that feeding your website with great content

, updating it regularly and making it up & running is enough for a successful online business?

The above approach may be good just to keep pace with your competitors, however to overtake them you need to go a step ahead by TARGETING your visitor segments.

What it implies: Take a simple example of buying a product or service. The way segment of buyers like you will identify your need for any product/service will certainly be different from other segment of buyers.

What needs to be done: List down your segments of visitors. Brainstorm on the way each segment of visitors needs to be TARGETED. There may be different preferences and needs for such segments and you will have to tailor your content, offers based on what would click with each one of them. This practice is collectively named as SEGMENT TARGETING.

What you can expect: Focused visitor experience will dramatically improve conversions i.e. more visitors becoming your customers. Moreover it will help you understand what is HIT with the visitors and where you need to bring further customization.

Practical Example: You have a computer training school & you organize following classes on a regular basis:

- Adobe Dreamweaver CS3

- Apple Final Cut Pro 6.0

- Adobe Fireworks CS3

- Java

- C Sharp

- Adobe Illustrator CS3

- Logic 8

- Adobe Illustrator CS3

- Adobe Photoshop CS3

- Adobe InDesign CS3

- QuarkXPress 7

- Soundtrack Pro

- Apple Motion 3.0

Standard Way to present this is to show all the classes in the 'available courses' link in top navigational menu. This approach is sure to confuse the user as he will have to go through courses which he doesn't want to attend or is least interested in knowing about. Most likely the visitor will opt-out in absence of the website's inability to provide him what he wanted affront.

More Cutting Edge approach will be

Create three entry points on the website - each for

- Video Professionals

- Web Developers

- Graphic Designers

When the visitor clicks on specific entry point, display courses which best suit the category.

Examples

If the visitor clicks on the "Video Professionals" button, the courses displayed will be

- Soundtrack Pro

- Apple Motion 3.0

- Apple Final Cut Pro 6.0

- Logic 8

If the visitor clicks on the "Web Developers" button, the courses displayed will be

- Adobe Dreamweaver CS3

- Adobe Fireworks CS3

- Java

- C Sharp

If the visitor clicks on the "Graphic Designers" button, the courses displayed will be

- Adobe Photoshop CS3

- QuarkXPress 7

- Adobe InDesign CS3

- Adobe Illustrator CS3

The above examples are a precursor of what has to be done and generates value for both visitors and you. AfterTheNet's (http://www.afterthenet.com) specialized research shows that the practice of SEGMENT TARGETING is widely practiced across industries. Apart from grossly improving the quality of your website, this practice will immensely catapult the RECALL VALUE of your website among both your visitors and customers.

About the author

Neil is a member of the Knowledge Centre Team at AfterTheNet (http://www.afterthenet.com).

Our expertise helps clients' Marketing Teams to align to their business goals and targets. We are led by diversely experienced Business Executives giving you that cut above the rest advantage.

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